On Graduating

 These are my thoughts as I sit in the library with only one paper and an apartment to pack standing between me and graduation:

I am tired. I am worn out not only from finals and two long weeks of papers and presentations and packing up my life, but I am worn out from four years of school.

 I am tired of having to learn the things people think I should learn and learning them the way they think I should learn it. I'm sorry, but not everyone learns well simply from presenting and memorizing three months worth of material to take one exam where you will forget everything as soon as you walk out the door.

 I am ready to be done constantly studying and preparing for something that doesn't feel tangible or attainable because I'm not sure what a humanities degree prepares me for. A job? But what job? Higher education?

 I am tired of the people I pass by but no longer know.

 I am ready to leave the dorms with small, cramped rooms that you are afraid to damage but are already so worn down it's hard to imagine anyone noticing that dent in the wall you made.

 I am ready to have the time to pursue my writing without homework getting in the way.

 I am ready for people to look at me as a true adult and not simply an adult "on hold" in college.

 I am ready to pour everything I have learned into a fullfilling job.

 I am ready to enter a library with no intention of studying, but just be there to look for a good novel to read.

 But I am not ready for a major change.

 I am not ready to leave this campus that has been home for the last four years.

 I am not ready to leave this town and the friends I have made.

 I am not ready to say goodbye to the professors that have had such an impact on me.

 I am not ready to go into the world and say, "Here I am, world. I am a Christ following humanities major graduate who just wants to write novels and get married and in the meantime is looking for a job where she can simply feel fullfilled by applying her knowledge of writing to a wonderful company."

 I am not ready for a job that has nothing to do with my major.

 I'm not ready to simply discover what God has next for me.

 I'm not ready to go home again, back to my old room that looks exactly the same as when I last looked at it before leaving for college freshman year, and live in that room that hasn't changed even though I have.

 I am not ready to walk across that stage and say goodbye to everything I have known these four years.

 But I am in three days.

 So these are my thoughts as the sun bathes me in its warmth, as I  sit in the library with only one paper and an apartment to pack up between me and graduation.